Our enemy is by tradition our savior, in preventing us from superficiality.

Flying fosters fantasies of childhood, of omnipotence, rapid shifts of being, miraculous moments; it stirs our capacity for dreaming.

Life is like boxing in many unsettling respects. But boxing is only like boxing.

My belief is that art should not be comforting; for comfort, we have mass entertainment and one another. Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish.

I've never given up. I've always kept going. I don't feel that I could afford to give up. That would be the beginning of the end.

It's one of those secrets that's embarrassing to acknowledge, but we do love our students.

I don't think I'm morbid by nature. Serious writers have always written about serious subjects. Lighthearted material doesn't appeal to me, and I don't read it. I think I'm a realist, with a realistic sensibility of history and the tragedy of history.